Character Portraits

Of the various sections in the pitch for "The Four Kingdoms", the character profile pictures are a prominent section that helps put the entire story summary into context. Aside from the cover image itself (which I might be posting up here soon), this is the reader's first glimpse of the characters. Each portrait had to encompass that character's personality, their role in the story, pretty much everything you'd need to know about the character - just from a single picture!

I'll be posting new character portraits here with each new update, giving quick recaps on the characters and the process we went through to get the character portraits done up.

We actually started not with sketches, but with a series of written character descriptions. Rachel and I were already familiar with each character's look and personality, but the first thing we wanted to do was create a scene for each character so that the portrait felt like it was part of a larger narrative. For example:

Quinlan: He waits alone, thinking. Wondering. Mind elsewhere, his bow held fast. Half-attentive, he looks out into the forest from his perch on the high branch, searching for intruders. His mind is instead focusing on a great many other things - tomorrow, he will no longer be a scout, protecting his borders. Instead, he will be at the heart of everything - the capital city, the king's chambers, exactly where he doesn't want to be. Already he wears the uniform, but it doesn't feel right to him - like he's in another's person's skin, wearing a costume. He waits, crouched on the branch in the middle of the Western Deep, bow in hands, a quiver of arrows on his back.

With that description, and descriptions for the other major characters in the first issue, Rachel set to work on a series of sketches, some of which can be seen above. Quinlan's was meant to be a bit morose without him looking too pathetic. Dakkan's was meant to make him look carefree and contemplative. Kenosh's was meant to portray a tense scene in the Lutren senate as he convinces them to send his peace envoy to the north. The final versions of Dakkan and Kenosh are below - I'll post up the other two soon!

Deltrada Cover

Just a quick update for everybody - the pitch materials are coming together excellently, with character profile pics, fully-completed pages, and some very cool mock-up issue covers to demonstrate how the comic would look sitting on a shelf in a store.

I wanted to share the progression of one of the covers with you - specifically our second issue "Deltrada" cover featuring protagonist Quinlan's battle against the blind Ermehn swordmaster, Red. While I won't go into much detail over the specifics of the scene, enough can be inferred from the cover image itself to say that in issue 2, Quinlan finally confronts the Sratha-din Ermehn threat and finds himself in his very first life-or-death fight. Because of this, we wanted the cover to capture that intensity - this isn't just some ordinary fight scene, this is the first time Quinlan's had to fight for his life, and so the cover had to capture the menace and raw power of his foe.

To start, Rachel sketched out a series of thumbnail images so we could see which scene layout we liked the most. There were four initial concepts (shown above), each one showing a different angle/tone/etc. The first sketch got Red's size and strength across well enough, but it felt a bit too crowded and the title text up top would have obscured about 99% of Red's sword. The second sketch, showing Quin from the front with Red swinging away from the camera, just felt awkward. Having Quinlan as the center of attention also put him on a higher footing than his foe - the idea behind the cover was to downplay Quin and make him seem less powerful than Red, and showing our protagonist so prominently elevated him a bit too much. The third sketch featured a similar problem - it elevated Quin a little too much, making him seem as powerful if not moreso than Red. The angle is also a little too straight-on, so we nixed that one.

The very last sketch ended up being the one we went with - it put Red front and center, sword in the air, bearing down on an evasive-looking Quin, who is shrinking back defensively. Rachel took the thumbnail and cleaned it up a little bit, sending it over in the form of the sketch to the right.

From here, Rachel was able to take the sketch and expand on it. In the script for this scene, the two characters are fighting in the pouring rain, so a lot of time was spent on Rachel's part looking into how water acts on various surfaces. There was also quite a bit of effort spent on his sword - bloodied from a previous encounter - and how said blood would be affected by the downpour.

With these directives in mind, Rachel went about creating the first pass at the cover using the appropriate page dimensions and flat colors - no rain or special effects, yet.

In general, we were both pleased with the layout of the characters, the angle of the shot, etc. Rachel also had to remind me that Red's elaborate tattoos, which give his character a lot more visual dimension, had not been added yet - so I was okay with the general absence of detail on Red's body and clothing.

A few things needed tweaking at this point, however - Quinlan's demeanor and pose being the big ones.

In the original sketch, he seemed a lot more animated, like he was actively trying to avoid the inevitable sword swing. In this first pass, he seemed a bit surprised, like he'd let his guard down a moment before. This, along with the various minor tweaks and environmental/special effect additions would be reflected in the next few passes.

In the next pass, Quinlan was altered to look more like he did in the original sketch, and the special effects were added, along with Red's tattoos. The title text was also added! The final pass is below. Enjoy!

An Update! Also, Sunsgrove Architecture

Wow, three months between blog posts! Clearly this is what I meant when I said we'd be posting more stuff! We're hard at work putting together all the content for the pitch - from fully-completed pages to character portraits and beyond. Stephen Christy, Director of Development at Archaia Studios Press, put together a spectacular commentary on a pitch that was presented to him for the upcoming series "Feeding Ground". Essentially, this was a step-by-step look at a successful comic pitch, and it's been a superb resource throughout our pitch creation process. You can view the images (with Stephen's commentary) right over here.

Currently, we're working on getting the "Characters" section of the pitch completed. I'll show some of the artwork for that as it comes through, but I wanted to share some of the material Rachel's put together for the recently-completed pages that are going into the pitch. Specifically related to the Sunsgrovian architecture style we ended up using for the pages.

To start with, the scene in question is a playful sparring match between protagonist Quinlan and an egotistical Tesque trainer named Crim. In the background, we can see the Tamian dwellings surrounding the training area where the match is taking place. The problem was that we didn't really know what the dwellings should look like. All I'd really given Rachel was that the Tamian have a tree-based city, and that I didn't want it to look like a copy of the Ewok Village from Return of the Jedi, Tree-Top Town from Donkey Kong Country, the Elvish cities from Lord of the Rings, or Sprucetuck from Mouse Guard. In other words, I'd told her what it wasn't - but not what it WAS.

So we worked out the following four rules for the Tamian architecture:

1.) Inverse class/height tropes. What does this mean? In most fantasty tales (and in real life), the rich people live high up, while the poor people live on the ground level. In Sunsgrove, where the entire race is vertically inclined, the tops of the trees offer more living space for the unwashed masses. Countless communal hammocks line the treetops, offering even the poorest Tamian a place to sleep.

With Sunsgrove's relatively recent diplomatic focus with the land-bound Lutren, Canid, Vulpin and Felis, the upper-class Tamian began building ground-level accommodations. Diplomats and royalty began to grow accustomed to living on the ground, and the ground-level living quarters became the most valuable properties to own.

2.) Open, open, open. The middle and lower-class Tamian (ie the majority) live in the treetops. They've been leaping between trees for countless generations, so I wanted their architectural style to take that into account - it would need to be open and spacious, with lots of open archways and no doors whatsoever. Heavy curtains would keep the cold, rain, and snow out, and at the same time afford a wide open view to the majesty of the Western Deep - the forest that surrounds the Tamian capital city.

This resulted in a lot of research into various forms of "open" architecture. Archways, latticework, all sorts of things. Rachel pulled a variety of inspirations from all over the world as she pieced together the look of the Tamian city.

3.) Preserve the trees. Since the trees of the capital city are revered as sacred relics, hollowing them all out willy-nilly would feel strange. Because of this, most homes that are built up the tree trunks only partly go into the tree. Homes on the trees are generally small, as Tamian don't spend much time within them, so there wouldn't be much need to hollow out the trees that much anyway.

4.) Avoid uniform angles. This is a similar rule to one that I'd heard from the making of features in Lord of the Rings - the Elvish architecture didn't use many, if any, straight lines. Everything was naturally curved to emphasize the Elves' harmony with nature (which also doesn't feature straight lines).

While I wanted to avoid comparisons to Elvish cities like Rivendell or Lothlorien, it's a good general rule when trying to make a city that looks "natural". These rules coalesced into a pretty cohesive style for the Tamian city, focusing on circular ramps, wide arches, and generally a "vertical" feel.

That's all for now, but as the character portraits and other pitch assets come together, I'll try to get some stuff on here.

Making the Page

Hey everybody, Alex here! Sorry about the huge downtown between posts - there's been a lot going on in the interim, so there's quite a bit to report!

First and foremost, Rachel has graduated from BYU and is balancing her Four Kingdoms work with a veritable mountain of other projects on her plate. Aside from that, I've also been keeping busy on a variety of new projects, from work-related game projects to a spectacular comic-writing opportunity with my good friend, Sean Rubin.

Have no fear, though! Progress continues on the comic, and our plan to have a solid pitch together for the next New York ComicCon is still perfectly on-track.

I figured that since it's been a few months since we really offered up a post, I'd treat you to something pretty in-depth and behind the scenes: a page's progress, from start to finish!

This is the first draft that Rachel did oh-so-long ago. This was obviously before any serious script edits, back when the comic script was basically ripped verbatim from the source material - which was, in fact, a novel. You don't need to be Scott McCloud to know that comics don't really support the exposition you can fit into a novel, so I had to really dive into other comics to see how they handled loads of exposition.

Long story short, they don't. At least, they don't in such a short period of time. I realized that I'd need to take a hacksaw to my script - not just here, but EVERYWHERE. I really took a good look at other comics in the genre, from Mice Templar to Mouse Guard, the latter really helping me figure out how to reduce word count using on-screen actions and expressions instead of nouns and verbs.

This panel also demonstrates some of the issues we had early on with paneling. The comic was originally laid out like a movie storyboard, with a lot of medium shots for expository sections like this. As Rachel eventually came to learn, comics have their own panel-to-panel language, and that would require a good deal of re-paneling.

This page on the left is a few revisions later. You'll see a few new things right off the bat. First, the script isn't as long. It's still long, but it's not quite as clunky and page-filling as it was in the original version.

Perhaps the biggest change here is in how the panels are laid out. Whereas the first draft consisted almost entirely of mid-range shots, this new version dares to go for the dramatic close-up, and also cuts away briefly to show the Juskadin in the third panel.

In general, this new layout represents the new direction we took after the initial draft, which was twofold: less text, and more diverse panel layouts. Close-ups, cutaways, dramatic angles - nothing is off-limits! If it makes the scene more interesting, we're all about trying it.

Finally, we have the completed page on the right. I did leave out a few steps before, like the completed inks and lighting studies that Rachel did, but we must maintain SOME level of mystery, yes?

It still amazes me just how much nicer things look in color! Sure, there are some excellent black & white comics out there (Bone popping into my head almost instantly), but I just love the palette that Rachel went with here - it really represents the heart of Four Kingdoms, which is a combination of dark fantasy themes and homages to classical animated films.

The Lutren army uniform, with the wave motif, just pops right out of the page when it's in color. Also, the third panel, with its silhouetted malice, really turned out well.

The re-panels and page colorings continue, along with a variety of other pitch materials, such as character portraits, maps, covers, all that good stuff. As things move along, rest assured we'll stick it here for you to see!

Coloring progress!

Hey, Rachel here!

It's been a long time since this blog has been updated! Mainly that's because of my time being strained with school, along with a huge overhaul on the art for this project.

One of the most difficult (and fun!) part of drawing a comic is when it comes to the coloring stage. Here is where a lot of the mood of your comic gets established - is it cartoony? Realistic? Sad? Intense? Dramatic? Silly and lighthearted?

We'd tried a coloring pass on one of our finished pages earlier this year, with these results:


At the time, I thought it was looking pretty sweet. Overwhelmingly Crayola Green color scheme for the forest, soft shading, an attempt at lighting... of course right now I can't find much good to say about it! It's very flat and boring, and one of the professionals we went to for feedback told me so (a shout-out to David Petersen: thanks a ton!).

I went on with drawing and fixing pages, and in my personal work, looked for opportunities to practice my digital coloring. Getting good color schemes, making believable lighting, improving my painting style - the sort of things that were lacking.

Here is the new and improved color pass:


I managed to find a way to make light more luminous, and in general got a better grasp on how to work with color. In half a year I don't know where I'll be or how much further I will have improved, but this felt like a big step forward. And the best part is it'll make this comic that much easier on the eyes for all y'all! :)

Dakkan's Journey

I must again apologize for these large gaps between blog posts – I can assure you that it’s not because we’re lazy!  Quite the contrary, it’s our genuine lack of lazy that’s kept us from updating regularly.  I’ll try to keep things coming at a regular pace from here on out.

To make up for the long gap between posts, I’ve got a special treat for you all, courtesy of Rachel herself!  Not just any ‘ol artwork, but a full-fledged storyboard of a Four Kingdoms-inspired event that occurred in Dakkan’s early career in the Lutren Military.

This storyboard project was actually for one of Rachel’s many art-related college courses, so some liberties were taken with the world of the Four Kingdoms for the sake of the storyline.  For example, badgers and raccoons were added in because their natural ‘masks’ made them great highway robbers, even though they're not featured in the actual world of the Four Kingdoms.  So while this can’t be considered 100% canon as-is, a rough approximation of these events definitely did occur in some capacity in Dakkan’s past.

In the original Four Kingdoms script, Dakkan was not quite the same character he is now.  I had written in a kind of free-wheeling goof to play off of Quinlan’s cynical world view, but he was proving to be generally devoid of character; a standard comical sidekick with no real depth to him.  But when Rachel’s long-time character, Dakkan, was introduced as Quinlan’s best friend in a later draft revision, the friendship came to life.  It became more than a hero/sidekick relationship – these two characters had become friends through painful life experiences: no proper father figures, a debilitating fear of taking another’s life, and a deeply-rooted sense of loyalty to their respective kingdoms, among other things.

This origin-type story chronicles Dakkan’s very first mission as a Lutren soldier, guiding a pair of merchants through a dangerous part of the forest.  When they are confronted by highway robbers, Dakkan’s quick temper takes hold and he finds himself quickly in a fight for his life!  What happens next changes him forever.  Let’s just say that there’s a good reason you won’t see Dakkan hefting a sword in the comic anytime soon.

The full video can be found by following the link below.  The Quicktime movie features one individual storyboard panel per frame, so simply click the link or download it, then use your Left/Right arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll forward and backwards through the story.  Also, I should mention that these boards, like the Four Kingdoms comic itself, are rated PG-13, T for Teen, etc.  That said, enjoy!

DAKKAN STORYBOARD PROJECT

Hi everybody!  Sorry about the delay - I meant to put up something about New York ComicCon on here, but ended up writing the last blogpost instead.  In a nutshell, NYCC went incredibly well, we got a lot of good feedback about Four Kingdoms.  An extra-special thanks goes out to Dave Petersen for his critique of the first issue roughs; when we do get the page revisions completed and everything is pretty and colored, it'll look much better than it would have had he not given it that once-over.  Hopefully we'll be able to show some "before and after" panels sometime soon to go over the improvements being made to the layout.

Of course, that brings me to the next part of this post - "soon" is, of course, a relative thing.  While I can imagine how full-time comic artists and writers are able to focus entirely on their craft, it's only because I have a good imagination; Rachel and I do have priorities with our full-time jobs (student and game designer, respectively), but don't worry - work always continues on Four Kingdoms, no matter what happens!

I'll wrap up this post with a fantastic piece of guest art by Alchera.  Hardin never looked so menacing!

The next couple of weeks will be busy busy busy on my end, as the Game Developer's Conference is coming up and, like some kind of geeky salmon returning to its point of origin, I am compelled to return to said GDC as often as possible.  Maybe if you're all really good, Rachel will come on here and bestow upon you a gift of some kind?  We'll see!